Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

[Afania]

That^ i lvld MRD to 34 LNC to 22 and a couple of things more, i tried crafting (and in 1.0 i did quite alot of botany which i really liked doing but they dumbed it down in ARR) and its just... where's the challenge. I want a game where i can play for longer then 3 months. The fate thing is a copy of GW2 and badly implemented. crafting is pointless since almost every quest hands you a piece of gear, gathering is pointless since that marketboard is just hilarious. i said it on the the xiv forum and i'll say it here too, they're trying way to hard to make xiv not be like xi so they also didnt implement anything which was actually good about xi.
in short, its a shiny game with little content.
Its like a really nice looking bra, but the moment you put it on you notice it doesnt fit well and is made of only 5 parts instead of the must have 50 parts

SE's broke, they can't no longer afford to make another mega sized MMO and take risk of failing again. So they have to focus on 1 single aspect, make it small, make ppl satisfied, so that buy them time and money, at least they got some box sells.

I agree with what you said though, I want more than just "go to dungeon and fight the boss, beat it, so I can do next dungeon" MMORPG. But I guess no company is ambitious enough to make anything more than that.

[Afania]

Just wondering why u feel that way and what u don't like about it? I've heard that from a few ppl but imo I am having fun playing xiv. Its fast, there's a ton of things going on, lots of people, and it is beautiful. I like the controls and the game play customization. My only complaint right now is that it seems way too easy, not just leveling but everything I experienced so far hasn't proven to be a challenge. But yet im only lvl 14

It really depend on what you're looking for in an MMORPG.

XIV is linear, very straight forward, and the game scope is small. It often give you tons of things, quests/fate/dungeon to do, and dungeon mechanics are fun for the first time.

The issue is not every players are looking for this kind of linear experience. I think being "immersive" is one very important aspect in MMO. MMO is supposed to be a 2nd world for players to live in, with strong social aspect and sense of living in the world, not just a game where you quickly beat 1 thing to do another.

XIV has very small but pretty map, at first it's new and fresh to look at every pretty locations. Until you keep playing and realized every map in the game doens't feel real....desert is small and full of stuff, but in reality desert should be something like XI, where you walk forever to one place to another, seeing nothing but sand ._. Snowy field is the same. It's supposed to be something like XI, long walk, no camp, no city, where you get lost and actually feel cold. XIV is not like that, you get a snowy field where each town is 2 min of bird ride between each other, and 1000 players killing FATE pop in the middle of the road. In the name of "accessibility and fun", you can head to 1 location to another in a 2m ride and the sense of adventure is completely gone.

Same for character customization, in MMO you're supposed to play however you want, live however you want. In XIV the entire game been telling me where to go next, what to do next, what my job role is. And I can't do things I want to do, until I cleared previous content.

Plenty of players said XIV is fun, because it really tried really hard to give you tones of things to do in very short amount of time. Exciting dungeon bosses one after another. Fate is fast, quests only need a few bird ride/teleport and you can finish many of them in 5 min. But for some reason, I feel I'm disconnected to the game, there are no immersion, just instant gratification. All there's left in XIV, is "What's the boss mechanic of next dungeon?" or "I need to get an Ifrit weapon so I can do Garuda, next exciting boss yeahhhh!".

The more I play XIV, the more I miss old XI. I wish dev can bring old XI back ._. Ppl need to stop bashing designs that doesn't bring instant gratification, because instant gratification isn't necessary zomg awesome, especially for games like XI, which already has another instant gratification competitior.

[vienne]

Afania, you wonderfully worded how i feel about xiv < > xi

[Kuvo]

Afania, you wonderfully worded how i feel about xiv < > xi

I agree, afania has a lot of great points and it made me see them in the game too. I honestly wanted xiv to be an extension of xi but I need to look at xiv as a completely different game. I will continue to play both and see how xiv develops but all your points are very valid.

[Daemon]

Instant gratification games, designs, objectives only serve the purpose to stimulate the serotonin levels of a player. Sort of the same as a drug addict getting a temporary high only to waste their time altering their mind only on the high itself and forget about the harm it's doing them and how they are ruining their life around people who care.

Although that example is several times more hardcore than a game. It's still the same concept just slower and more subtle that people can't see right away.

[Afania]

I agree, afania has a lot of great points and it made me see them in the game too. I honestly wanted xiv to be an extension of xi but I need to look at xiv as a completely different game. I will continue to play both and see how xiv develops but all your points are very valid.

Perhaps my biggest gripe with XIV is disconnect feel when it comes to character development, since it's vertical gear progression like SoA XI. In pre-SoA XI your character gets stronger by doing tons of content and collect gears and build tons of gear sets. The longer you play, the more gears you can use for different situations. When I played pre-SoA XI, every new gear set I made, there's a sense of satisfication because I really feel my character/job gets stronger, as every new piece of gear are part of my strength to deal with difficult situations, most of them are not replaced, nor replaced easily, they're part of my arsenal that made my character/job strong. That's the real reason why I'm willing to play XI for years and grind gears doing same content for years, because my character feels more than just another avatar in a virtual world, it's a character with a story, and gets stronger as life goes on.

In XIV, at least current XIV, I feel I'm just collecting X gear or Y gear to bypass the gear check so I can do next content after next. Once you pass gear check it's time to toss the gear for better gears. Grind primal weapons for titan HM because there's DPS check on titan, and need titan clear to continue relic quest, once you pass that stage previous primal weapons are just nothing but a stepping stone. Grind Darklight because there's HP check for X content, once you get AF2 time to replace them.

In pre-SoA XI, I feel like I do content and grind gears because I love my character/job, and I do them to make my character/job stronger. There's a feel for character progression. I value immersion when I play RPG, and pre-SoA XI really delivered it when it comes to character development.

I XIV, I feel like I do content because I need X gear to do this content, so I can do next content. And why do I need to do next content? Well, because it's pretty much everyone's doing and only thing you can do after you hit lv cap. It's more like linear content progression than character progression.


At first I was expecting XIV to be an extension of XI too, until I realized they're completely different game with different design philosophy. It's probably easier to enjoy XIV by just accepting what it is. Although I still wish XI can go back to pre-SoA direction, that's the time I enjoyed XI the most, and IMO, better game direction for XI.

[Kuvo]

I haven't done much of anything with the new expansion except for unlocking the 2 new jobs but ill tell u that I think I will now. All that new gear and weaponsre so amazing. I love playing the old content still and that gear and weapons would be perfect for the type of gameplay im looking to do..... also me and 2 other friends have been leveling a bit old fashion. We have been doing FoV in all different areas matching our levels. Like the other day we partied in the jungle killing mandies outside kazham. I bit slow in leveling but capped all our skills and its been fun doing so. Started to bring back the low level adventure again.

[Damane]

i played now FFXIV for 3 weeks aaaaand while the game is fun, i cant fathom the community there. so unless my friends of FFXI gather on one server to play in 14, i will pass on that one ¬.¬

[Kuvo]

i played now FFXIV for 3 weeks aaaaand while the game is fun, i cant fathom the community there. so unless my friends of FFXI gather on one server to play in 14, i will pass on that one ¬.¬

Ya, to your point I was doing some random quest and saw 2 other people starting the same quest. So I asked them if they want to join together and do the quest. They said why bother because you can solo 99% of these quest lines. So I get your point about the community. I just wanted to try and meet new ppl but it makes for a good point. On ffxiv there is no reason (thus far) to develop in game friendships based on content.
Xi started to fall apart in a similar fashion. Anything before aby, no one wants to be apart of so no one wants to help or adventure together anymore. Luckily I have 2 close friends that still play xi otherwise I would be gone.

[Byrth]

There has been a 50% drop in NA player logins within the last six months. Several factors are likely to be at play:
* Aging-game syndrome
* Developmental decisions (including the horizontal-to-vertical progression switch)
* The presence of competing games (like FFXIV)

I think that it is not wise to underestimate either of the last two factors, though the first factor cannot be ruled out totally. Based on some data from a mysterious source, I would be unsurprised if the majority of the effect was due to Dev decisions and if FFXIV was a minor effect.